Driver in fatal accident had multiple tickets

Records show she has 16 traffic citations since 2005, including speeding and failure to stop.

February 22, 2011|By Joseph Serna, joseph.serna@latimes.com

(Courtesy Orange…)

A Newport Beach motorist who received more than a dozen traffic tickets in the last five years allegedly hit a bicyclist with her car while driving drunk in Newport Coast Monday night, police said.

Danae Marie Miller, 22, was booked on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated related to the fatal crash on San Joaquin Hills Road just before 6 p.m. Monday. The accident was the fourth fatal collision between a vehicle and a cyclist in Newport Beach since July 2009.

Miller was released early Tuesday after posting $100,000 bail, Orange County Sheriff's Department records show.

Most of the violations were issued on separate dates, but some were combined violations, such as speeding and talking on a cell phone at the same time, court records show.

She received six tickets for speeding or driving too fast for conditions each year between 2005 and 2009, a ticket in 2006 for driving the wrong way on a street, a failure to stop at a stop sign in 2007, and tickets in 2009 and 2010 for talking on her cell phone while driving.

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Police said Tuesday that Miller was driving eastbound on San Joaquin between Spyglass Hill Road and Newport Ridge Drive West when her car hit a man riding his bike in the same direction. Authorities have not released the name of the man who died at the scene pending notification of next of kin.

Miller failed a field sobriety test, which must be given to drivers suspected of being involved in a fatal crash as part of the police investigation, said Newport Beach Police Officer Rachel Johnson.

Miller could not be located for comment.

Anyone with information regarding the crash is asked to call investigator Todd Bush at (949) 644-3746.